Facebook Files First Patent Lawsuit; Countersuing Alt Weekly Newspaper Company Who Sued First

from the watch-who-you-sue dept

Facebook, like many growing Silicon Valley companies, has not been known to use patents for offensive purposes, but the company has now filed its first patent infringement lawsuit. However, this is really a defensive strike, as it's a countersuit against Phoenix Media, publisher of the Boston Phoenix, an alt-weekly publication. Apparently Phoenix sued Facebook last year over a patent (6,253,216) on "providing a personal profile page" (stop laughing -- it's really been patented).

As the article notes, Facebook has been sued about 15 times for patent infringement, and has (so far) refused to settle any cases. In most cases, the lawsuits are by patent holding companies, so there's nothing to sue them back over. However, since this is an actual operating company, Facebook has launched its countersuit, suing for patent infringement over two patents that it acquired from other companies recently. It's nice to see Facebook pushing back against those who sue it over silly patents. It will be worth watching to see if it continues to be aggressive against such bogus threats.

So, as there's a personal profile page patent (another episode of truth is stranger than fiction) it's about time I got off my duff and patented my notion of a "best bathroom readling" field on personal profile pages.

That one should get a rubber stamping and I'll have my shiny patent in no time!

YEAH!

And so, like copyrights before them, patents run screaming toward obsoletion. The USPTO thinks it's saving money by not bothering to do any fact-checking, but it'll come back to bite them when nobody cares about patents anymore.
(Seriously, "providing a personal profile page"?)

Phoenix

The Phoenix is about as "alternative" as the Wall Street Journal. It's what you read when you want the latest middle-of-the-road, safe, stoic Leftist opinion pieces. It's for those people who agree with The Daily Show, but find it too "noisy."

The paper also owns a couple of radio stations. Its flagship is WFNX, an "alternative" radio station; the other stations usually just re-broadcast its programming. In the twenty years I've lived in Boston, I've never heard FNX play a song that wasn't on a major label.

So, yeah, it's a radio and newspaper empire. I'll give you two guesses as to why it's failing.

And if you're in Boston, read the Weekly Dig and listen to WBCN instead.

Re:

Re: YEAH!

"In most cases, the lawsuits are by patent holding companies, so there's nothing to sue them back over."

This is nonsense, why the heck are patent even allowed to sue people for infringement. They contribute nothing of value to society and they are allowed to extort everyone out of their hard earned money. What a scam.

Re:

It all started when I was logged in to the Harvard website, where I was listening in to the conversations of the Harvard students. One of these students was Mark Zuckerberg who was talking about Face Smash and he had just broken up with his girlfriend at the time, so I struck up a conversation with this Mark Zuckerberg. He was talking about creating a dating site. I thought this was a bit odd - a pie in the sky idea since he had just broken up with his girlfriend and he was slagging her off - calling her a bitch and a whore.
dave talked to Mark about the idea, and suggested he call it Face Mash. He was intrigued with my suggestion and thought it was a good idea. Mark wanted to call it Face Smash, because he wanted to smash his ex in the face. I convinced him that Face Mash was a good idea and he agreed, but one week later he changed his mind and wanted to call it Face Smash. When I queried him about this he replied 'f.... off you c...- I'm calling it Face Smash'. Two weeks after this conversation he came up with the name Mashable and when I asked him why he chose the word Mashable instead of Face Mash he said 'f,...off you bastard, Face mash is not your idea'. So I re-posted the conversations we had two weeks earlier and he had to apologise and said he was going with Mashable. I took this as a sign that he wanted to throw me off the scent and take the site for himself. dave found the character of Mark Zuckerberg to be deceptive and dishonest and ended conversing with Mark Zuckerberg because of his dishonesty and lack of integrity

After this dave started conversing with Dustin and Chris about an idea of mine called Facebook for an online service where students can post pictures and information on themselves and use it as a directory. They were very intrigued by my idea and wanted to know more.
dave told them that in the beginning, it would be an online service just for Harvard students, and then spreading through the other campuses in America, joining them up together. The idea was to make it easy for people to connect with other university students so they could get an idea of what other campuses were like, and even eventually spreading through the general public, giving them an idea of what was offered at the different campuses.
Dustin and Chris were very intrigued with my idea and said they wanted to be on board.
dave talked extensively about my ideas of Facebook and went into great detail of how to get it set up and started. They queried about the finance of setting it up and I told them I was in contact with Tony Robbins, who was interested by the idea and we were having discussions regarding his financial backing of the project

So we needed a platform dave made contact with paul ceglia and was in discussion about a platform for my idea the facebook
but zuckerberg was dustin & chris roommate and zuckerberg made contact to paul ceglia to steal the idea facebook
paul ceglia had no legal right to sell the the platform to mark zuckerberg but zuckerberg new what he was doing when he sign the contract
(paul ceglia had no legal right to sell the the platform to mark zuckerberg } the contract was to David not zuckerberg .

And what are you going to do zuckerberg when paul ceglia wins you can call the contract a fake a counterfeit but you cant can you zuckerberg Yes you did sign a contract zuckerberg In a email zuckerberg called paul ceglia a dum sucker in 2003 i david posted a copy of to friend and he set it fee and the roomer spread years a go that zuckerberg had sign the contract and yes the abc news room have a copy of the email

So zuckerberg what are your options zuck i suppose you can tell the truth you see paul cegia had no legal right to sell you the platform
david was in contact to paul about a platform suitable for facebook but you wonted to steal facebook by stealth and you will have to tell
your mother and farther and sisters how you stole the idea facebook yes pay back is a bitch zuck and your co conspire in this was dustin
yes dustin you told zuck to shut up about facebook you little prick

dave then found another contact at Harvard, called Eduardo Saverin and invited him to join me in developing my idea, and also to find out what was going on between Dustin, Chris and Mark . eduardo offered finance to get facebook up and runing but zuckerberg spent the money on him self selfish prick zuck spent eduardo saverin money and spat in his face your best friend

So ass one last effort to save facbook david contacted sean parker At the time, he was running an online site called Napstar, and he was also working on another site called Wired Hog parker at the time was on the move moving in to a new address : I started conversing with
sean parker about the idea facebook ; so i contacted the guys and gave them the new address of sean parker; and it was at this time zuckerberg was starting to argue with eduardo saverin: you see zuck had what he needed to steal facebook :{sean parker}

Sean wanted 55% ownership of the project for his input so dave told him this was unacceptable and then he turned round and told Mark Zuckerberg had made him a better offer. dave told him that Mark did not own the idea of Facebook.
He then got smart and asked me if dave knew what emails were and whether I could produce any evidence. dave took this as an attempt to see whether I could prove everything that took place and for him to use this as a weapon to see if he could gouge out as much interest in Facebook as he could, and he tried to play me off against Zuckerberg to get the maximum holdings of Facebook. I received an email from Parker saying that Zuckerberg had offered him 5% and was I interested in offering him more. At this point, I told him to **** off and that Facebook was not Zuckerberg's idea

So dave found a site at Harvard called Harvard Connect (later, in 2004 changed to Harvard Connect To You) run by Cameron and Taylor Winklevoss, and dave explained everything about Facebook and the dealings with Zuckerberg, Dustin and Chris and how dave believed that Zuckerberg was in the process of stealing david idea, and I dave asked if the Winklevosses were interested in running Facebook on the Harvard site

They expressed enthusiasm in the offer and liked the idea of running the site as they liked the concept of Facebook.They told me that they were going to change their site name and redesign it at that time (to Harvard Connect To You The person they called in to help them
redesign their site was Mark Zuckerberg who then stole their platform : I told them that zuckerberg was a crook the winklevoss where to dumb and dupe by zuckerberg LooooooooL.
And what do the winklevoss remind me off; its two building and the two buildings were the TWIN TOWERS you guys talk about the truth like you own the truth but you do not and never will .

dave then went to Aaron Greenspan who was running house systems at Harvard and asked him (under an email non disclosure agreement) to run Facebook on his site which he agreed to do. aaron greenspan used the (info) to extort financal money out of facebook and zuckerberg paid the extortion money and dave call it extortion U see zuckerberg new aaron greenspan new zuck had stolen the idea facebook .I sent all the emails copy to aaron greenspan:{ aaron sold him self off like a hooker standing on a street corner } and what was that quotation aaron that quotation you set me about honour and truth you now the same bullshit the winklevoss are bullshiting on about

zuckerberg then went on to create a FAKE CONNECT 2U account filled with FAKE information from the stolen platform he stole from the winklevoss Dave got a email from this FAKE CONNECT 2U account . but dave new it was FAKE it was zuckerberg .
zuckerber wonted more info and idea to steal so dave gave one idea and it was to put a silver layer around the F word on facebook to see if zuckerberg was going to steal this idea and yes he did

david then log a complaint to the FBI about this stolen fake connect 2u account with fake information and about mark zuckerberg
dave posted a copy of the emails to ben mezrick and to david kirkpatrick as for kirkpatrick your book is a joke and so are you :
you are just a fence jumper david kirkpatrick and its chris that is the gay one you dick 'you sold yourself out you were given the full story of how zuckerberg stole facebook; and sold out.

the winklevoss contacted sumers at UV about zuckerberg but summers new the full story of how zuckerberg stole facebook and it was david idea ?
there was coup organized by divyn narendra to over frow zuck from the idea FB but was a failure the winklevoss were to dumb yes dumb & dumber

david kirkpatrick & ben mezrick were givin copes of the emails in and around 2004 and can confirm the story above ?

david kirkpatrick was given all the emails and was made fully aware of how zuckerberg stole facebook from david in the beginning i gave kirkpatrick 80% of the emails kirkpatrick then ask if there was more ' yes there is more but ask kirkpatrick that he must reveal the truth the other 20% was email from paul ceglia to me dave made contact with paul ceglia and was in discussion about a platform for my idea the facebook
as for kirkpatrick you are a prick

in a email to eduardo i told him to get a lawyer zuckerberg was going to screw him over and told him to contact ben mezrick
eduardo told me he had a lawyer he can trust but zuckerberg and the lawyer screwed him over

So there we have it the full story of how facebook started:

kirkpatrick falls victim to the bane of many business historians infatuation with the subject

SO ZUCKERBERG WHO IS THE DUMB FUCK NOW

Tony Merchant may be contacted at 306-359-7777 . Jason Zushman can be contacted at 204-896-7777 .

david made contact to merchant law merchant law contact lisa simmson & mark zuckerberg there are some interesting emails if you contact jason zushman you can get the email from him i left instruction to give the emails to every one ask for them this was done years a go